Many of you will know that I recently embarked on a kind of therapy to help with my insomnia. Actually I was looking back to see when it started and it was September amazingly so seven months in total.

I have now reached the end of the three paying sessions with the person and overall I am sleeping better with no medication. A big success although I am not sleeping every night but am working on that myself.

The reason for my blog today is that despite the success of the therapy, I feel abandoned. I can't describe how I feel in any other way.

What happened was that I sent the therapist a message to say how much better I was feeling and asked them how they were. A couple of days later I received an impersonal follow up ending the therapy with a type of YouTube message telling me I can ask questions to an AI Q&A which they had set up.

I felt taken aback slightly as I expected a more personal reply which would have ended the therapy. Not a robot type reply.

I absolutely understand boundaries with therapy and did ask them to let me know if I was overstepping boundaries at one point. Part of their therapy was very personal and involved personal interaction during our Zoom sessions. Also they focussed on my personality and connected with me on a personal level which I feel really helped me.

I think their training encompassed this personal touch as a tool which totally centred on me or the client.

I'm old enough and sensible enough to be able to cope with the abrupt ending. However I doubt if everyone could.I have been tempted to Whatsapp them to query this ending but so far have resisted doing this.

Have any of you seen the HBO Series called In Treatment? It's a wonderful box set. Gabriel Byrne is the psychotherapist and in the last series he needs therapy himself. Eventually he doesn't respect boundaries and is very demanding of his therapist in a way he didn't allow with his clients. He decides he wants a personal relationship. It's brilliant. Gabriel Byrne is superb both as the therapist and as a client.

I am wondering if those Moodscopers who have had therapy have managed to cut off the relationship "just like that" or whether it's taken a while to ween yourself off the therapy and therapist.

I'd like to hear from anyone who is in therapy or who has had it in the past.

Thank you.

Julia

A Moodscope Member